More Kiwi Adventures

Hello all,

Our life has changed significantly since our last blog post. Thank you for all the prayers and well wishes...it meant A LOT and we are grateful for your love and support.

After reading about our tent saga, our lovely friends Linden and Alice had compassion on us and invited us to stay in their lovely spare room for 2 weeks. this was AMAZING as we finally got to sleep in an actual bed for a change. We had a blast living with this amazing couple..and recovered a lot after a rather rough start. Thanks Linden and Alice...we love you guys!

Isaac and I headed up to Hamilton to attend 'Hamtown Smackdown' where Isaac was asked to jump up on stage to perform with his old band 'Brick vs Face' as they played their final show after 6 years. He did an excellent job, the crowd loved it and I was proud as a peacock!



We managed to get to another craft sale in Auckland: Kraft Bomb...where we shared a table with our good friends Nate and Gem. They have collectively formed a craft company called 'Hunter Gatherer' and create incredibly beautiful and whimsical pieces. Please check them out here.

After Kraft Bomb...we jumped on a bus and headed down to Wellington with the goal of sorting out a place to live and a job for Isaac. Our incredibly awesome friend Dallas took us in for a week (even vacating his room for us!) and helped us heaps in trying to make things come together. We also attended a super fun outdoor craft sale in Wellington where we met lots of lovely Wellington people. We meant to do another craft sale the following week...but torrential rains defeated us.

We sorted out a giant room in a flat of 4 students to stay for 2 months while we save our pennies and try to sort out a place on our own. The advantage is that the room is large enough to accommodate our workshop, so I am excited to finally get back into the routine of creating. We are having some trouble sorting out a leather supplier in NZ...leather is not exactly plentiful here (which is ironic considering the sheep and cows outnumber people here 4 to 1!) so we are finding this to be our greatest obstacle. i am almost in a place to begin crafting shoes again...so all those who have patiently anticipated shoes for spring...your wait is almost over!

Once we sorted the room, we took off in Dallas's sweet van back to the mount to collect our stuff to bring back to Wellington. The trip between the Mount and Wellington is a good 8 hours....we stretched the trip there and back over 2 days. Dallas's van is equipped with a tape deck...so we rocked out to old 60's 70's and 80's favorites/metal...including Zeppelin, Neil young, Creedence, Janis Joplin, Guns n Roses and more. This provided hours of entertainment for us...though we did feel we were reliving the 69 Woodstock dream as we cruised around in our psychedelic van! I did a good portion of the driving this time...which I am proud about! It felt good and I think it is becoming more second nature. we looked so perfect in our hippie van..our dream of roaming the country as gypsy's was almost materializing!













I have to say...the trip was beautiful....now that the stress has somewhat calmed down, both Isaac and I are finding it easier to take in and appreciate the natural beauty around us...here are some lovely trip photos:









Once back in Wellington, we moved into our new room, breathing huge sighs of relief over being able to FINALLY lay out our stuff for the first time since December. One huge downer about Wellington...is the MASSIVE hills throughout the city! My out of shape body got the shock of its life as sight seeing was equivalent to small hiking excursions! Our house is at the top of a giant hill...going to get groceries is indeed a mission as I am just about dead once we reach the top. More annoyingly...Isaac can race to the top with minimal effort...grrr...this means NO biking for me...as the thought of crashing to my death is not appealing. On the flip side...I will gain legs and buns of steel within 2 weeks...one advantage I am willing to sacrifice for:)

Isaac has now sorted a job working with special needs adults (hooray) and we are crossing our fingers that he gets another position assembling furniture for a local company. We have set up our workspace and I am working hard to get Spirocreations back in business. We both feel a lot of hope and excitement for Wellington...we have already met great people and really like the bustling city itself.





We love and miss you all and wish we could transplant everyone here to NZ with us...once the Canadian migration begins to NZ...life will be just about perfect!



Much love from Barb and Isaac